


Sunrise

by sweeterthankarma



Category: Sense8 (TV)
Genre: F/M, S2E12: Amor Vincit Omnia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-25
Updated: 2020-02-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:08:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22888966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweeterthankarma/pseuds/sweeterthankarma
Summary: “Stay for a minute,” Riley tells Will, reaching for his forearm at the same time he goes to pull away the blankets. "It's been a lot lately."
Relationships: Riley Blue/Will Gorski
Comments: 6
Kudos: 37





	Sunrise

**Author's Note:**

> Set in an early scene of the finale episode. Riley and Will get a moment of peace amidst panic.

Moonlight does the same job as sunlight nowadays. 

Will is the first to wake nearly every day, feeling any kind of light and following it. Riley is steady as she lingers behind him, finds her consciousness just as instinctually as he does. He’s always been a morning person and so four AM doesn’t feel that foreign to him, but Riley is a night owl, feeling as though it’d make more sense to just pull an all nighter than offer herself the slightest taste of sleep only to break away from it so soon. 

The specifics of their schedules don’t really matter as of late, though, because hours and times have blended to the point where they both stumble awake and can’t tell whether the evening is ending or just begun. They don’t really care. It’s war, after all, this thing that they’re doing. Sun had reminded them yesterday. They can’t dare to forget. 

They’re trying to relax, to stay level headed. It’s not easy, especially not at night. 

Will twists, readying to rise, and Riley’s eyelids flutter as she welcomes the faint light of the moon on the curtains. She stays still, focusing on the feeling of Will beside her, and she tries not to think of Wolfgang, cuffed to cold metal and starving, dehydrating, suffering. She’ll panic if she gives herself the time to really consider what they’re up against, to truly look at the stakes of the situation and put herself into Wolfgang’s perspective again. She’s been in BPO’s clutches before and she knows all too well what they can do to hurt a person, to hurt _people._

Besides, if she thinks about it, Kala will too, and this is the first night since they’ve arrived in Paris that she’s slept soundly, hasn’t jolted awake in a cold sweat. Riley doesn’t want to jeopardize that.

So, she tries not to think about it. Instead, she thinks of what they have to do today, seven more steps towards making eight. She thinks about breakfast, groceries, if they have enough batteries and charging ports to run Nomi’s computers. She thinks about the brasserie down the street, if maybe tonight she can take someone, maybe Kala, to try to make their lives seem normal. Okay. Not falling apart.

A sense of unease stays with Riley no matter how hard she tries to blink and breathe it away. It’s something she’s become acquainted with, a kind of bone deep anxiety that keeps her struggling even when she does take moments to rest.

Will feels it too, and he’s entertained every possible line of defense for them, analyzed every possible tactic, con and strategy. It’s how he lives— in action, in stride, in gain— and Riley both adores and mirrors his dedication. Or, well, she does her best. She doesn’t know how he does it sometimes, but because he’s a part of her, she feels the way that he has to move, the need to fight, natural like blood pulsing or rain falling. Besides, the stakes have never been higher for them, and that thought is enough to make her want to both stand up and fight _and_ stay in bed forever. She’s not allowing herself to do the latter— she hasn’t even thought of giving up, not again, and that fact alone feels like a miracle— but she has to admit that today at least needs a moment to breathe. 

“Stay for a minute,” she tells Will, reaching for his forearm at the same time he goes to pull away the blankets. He sighs in relief the moment she speaks, though it’s a tiny sound that's just soft enough for her to notice. She notices everything about him. 

A sentence forms in Will’s mind but fades out as soon as Riley presses closer and wraps her hand around his middle. 

“It’s been a lot lately,” she says. He comes closer, fits into her space, and his forehead dips against as when he nods in recognition. “Stay with me.” 

The _just for now, just for a minute_ part is silent, though Will hears it, feels it, knows. 

“Always,” he responds nearly immediately and Riley’s eyes seek his out through the dark. The weight of his words both presses down on her and sets her free, and she clambers closer until she has a leg atop his and a tight arm around his middle.

“Five minutes,” he warns, though she hears his tempting thought: _I wish we could stay here._ “Don’t let me fall back asleep.”

A faint exhale, almost a chuckle, leaves Riley’s mouth. Will feels her hot breath on his temple, familiar. “We can have at least fifteen, Sun isn’t even up yet.”

Will lets out a relatively pleased sigh. “I guess we’ll let the others be our alarm clocks for once.”

“I think we deserve it,” Riley says, and the first— but hopefully not only— smile of the day rises up onto her lips.

“We’ll know when Lito is up, anyway,” Will says after a moment of sleepy silence. “It’s not like we even need a connection for that.” 

Riley laughs a little. It’s true. He's always so loud, energetic, and on edge, all at once and all the time. It's relentless and impressive. 

She traces the birth marks on Will’s shoulder, the curves of his bicep. His hand comes up to her neck, smoothes back her hair and holds her close.

 _We’ll get through this,_ she hears him think. _We’ll win._

They breathe in and out, over and over, together. The sun comes up, and then finally, they rise.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on Tumblr under the same username, sweeterthankarma, where I'm always in the mood to talk about how much I love and miss Sense8.


End file.
